"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" - this quote from Mao Tse
Tung best sums up Mugabe and his party's attitude to governance in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe and his henchmen - mostly Chinese trained - are convinced that they
have sovereignty over Zimbabwe and its citizens and are the only ones who have
the right to govern.

The Chinese connection is exemplified by Mugabe's use of the so-called "War
Veterans". These lawless land invaders, who, in any normal society would be
classified ,at best, as "squatters" are behaving just like the Red Guards of
Mao's China.

We, the residents of Zimbabwe, are under no illusions about these thugs. They
are controlled, paid, transported and directed by Mugabe's Zanu PF at the
highest level.

Mugabe has often been portrayed as mad or senile or ill informed about what
is happening in his country. Our response is to urge you to consider the
documents that have been given to zimtoday.com and make up your own mind.

Far from been mad, we believe Mugabe is one of the most intelligent and
shrewd politicians in the world. He is extremely capable and determined to reach
his goal which is to hold onto the reins of power whatever the cost. Good
governance, democracy, individual rights and freedoms, the constitution, the
interests of the people (black or white) and the rule of law are dispensable if
they threaten his power base. Mugabe is ruthless in silencing his enemies and
sees himself as above the law. He has shown that he will do anything to remain
President. Mugabe is certainly not stupid, the members of the Cosy Commonwealth
Club would do well to remember that in Australia.

The tactics of the Red Guards are carefully planned and executed.

Mugabe has explained the current land crisis in Zimbabwe as follows:
Landless, historically downtrodden, colonially disadvantaged, poor people,
having fought the oppression of the whites and British, have become impatient
and taken matters into their own hands, spontaneously invading the land.

For the first time we can publish on the net documents given to us that
utterly refute this contention.

(Documents 1& 2 originate from Dr Hitler's Surgery.)

Document
1 - This document lists those people - veterans - who would be under the
direction of someone like Hitler Hunzvi and would be "deployed " in various
areas for ''spontaneous'' invasions.

Document
2 - An action plan drawn up by the so-called Veterans Association for a
"National Reaction Force" to move onto the farms and against businesses.

Notice how the formal arms of Government provide support and administration.

Document
3. The minutes of the meeting held by senior army personnel in Harare
after hours.This document shows that far from being the leaders, people like
Hitler Hundzvi are pawns in the game being played by Mugabe and Zanu PF. Now
dead, Hitler will be replaced by another expendable radical (Joseph
Chinotimba?). We know of several "veterans" who, tired of claiming "their" land
have left for home, only to be forcibly returned to the cause!

This document makes interesting reading, but be assured, as we have been, by
our sources, that committees like these take their orders from the highest
powers. (Note the Presidential Order to clean out Matabeleland South!)

Also notice the contempt with which the ''veterans'' are regarded by the Zanu
PF.

Document
4. This is self-explanatory. What is displayed is the official Veteran
October 2000 computer pay roll printout from Central Pay and Records. Names,
bank details and amounts are all there. The list is for some 16,030 to be paid
Z$ 99,776,234.12 on 24/10/2000. We are convinced this list has since grown, but
it makes a mockery of the notion that these land invaders are landless peasants
who spontaneously moved onto land in order to survive.

The advantage of this system for Mugabe, is that in the eyes of the outside
world, especially in Africa, Zanu PF is redressing the past wrongs and
alleviating injustices. There is no greater illusion. In the long run the real
losers in this situation will be the Povo and we in Zimbabwe know it. This
monster will be removed sooner or later.

The next year will be hard, and as Mugabe begins to realise he is losing the
Presidential campaign, the "veterans" will become even more violent. Mugabe only
seems to understand the tactics of fear, violence, murder and intimidation - we
should expect more.

The next time some squatters murder a farmer or beat up his labourers, kill a
tribesman or burn down his kraal line, rape a woman or harass in the name of a
political party, murder or imprison anyone perceived to be opposed to Zanu PF,
remember that these deeds are not spontaneous but planned and approved from the
very top. This is an indisputable fact; proven by the documents you have read.

"Ethnic Cleansing" Zimbabwe style can be stopped as easily as Mugabe has
started it. These documents prove it.

WHEN Robert Mugabe married Grace
Marufu, his glamorous former secretary, inAugust 1996, he resolved to
provide her with a home fit for a first lady.Now the 32-room mansion he
built her on the outskirts of the capital,Harare, could be turned into the
Libyan embassy, or "people's bureau" - thelatest bizarre sign of growing
links between Muammar Gadaffi and theembattled Zimbabwean
leader.

Security sources revealed this weekend that the brown brick
building -nicknamed Gracelands - is among 20 properties bought by the Libyan
leader inrecent months in Zimbabwe.

Oppposition politicians fear they
could be used as safe-houses for thugssupplied by the Libyan dictator to
help intimidate opponents of hiscomrade-in-arms and, in the process, enhance
Gadaffi's own influence at theopposite end of Africa.

The sale will
not only provide Libya with by far the largest embassybuilding in Zimbabwe,
dwarfing the British and American missions; it willalso provide considerable
personal gain for Mugabe.

The house was built for Grace using nearly
£100,000 from a fund set upostensibly to provide low-cost housing for junior
civil servants. The firstlady was deeply embarrassed when the press found
out and refused to use thehome after it was finished in 1997.

It was
then put on the market for £350,000 but found no takers - untilGadaffi
turned up and offered £100,000 more.

It was not the first example of his
recent largesse to Mugabe's pariahstate: last year, unable to pay for fuel
and dogged by power cuts and civilunrest, the Zimbabwean leader made several
successful trips to Tripoli withhis begging bowl.

Analysts have
always noted there are few free lunches as far as Gadaffi isconcerned; he
sees his role in Zimbabwe as his pathway to developingdiplomatic clout
across black Africa.

To keep Mugabe sweet, he advanced him a loan of
£70m, and then made aspecial trip to last month's Organisation of African
Unity summit inLusaka - the first he had attended since 1977 - to give
all-out support toMugabe's land-grabbing and anti-white policies. So large
was Libya'sdelegation that Gadaffi even upstaged Nelson Mandela, the former
SouthAfrican president.

From Lusaka, Gadaffi then drove in a 150-car
motorcade to Harare, where hisarmy of amazon women bodyguards virtually took
over the capital. In anextraordinary television appearance, he announced
that Africa was for theAfricans and that whites must go back to Europe, or
be allowed to stay ononly as servants.

Gadaffi also promised Mugabe
an extra £418m in fuel supplies, on top of a£640,000 election contribution
to Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party. Moresinister was Gadaffi's command to
Harare's Indian Muslims for a jihad, orholy war, in support of Mugabe's
anti-white policies. Otherwise, he warned,he would bring in the notorious
Pagad movement from South Africa, afundamentalist Muslim vigilante group
linked to murders in the Cape,including bomb attacks on American- backed
enterprises such as the PlanetHollywood restaurant.

Most
of Harare's hard-working Muslims were aghast, and they fear theirsubsequent
failure to take up the jihad is the reason for a spate of attacksagainst
their businesses by Zanu's dreaded youth wing. "For heaven's sake,we all do
business with whites all the time," said one. "It's obvious we'rebeing
punished for not complying."

Gadaffi has also left behind two extra
bodyguards for Mugabe and fourspecialist "co-ordinators". They are believed
to have experience in thetraining and handling of death squads, which it is
feared could be based inthe houses acquired by Gadaffi. The properties are
strategically locatedaround the country, with four in Harare and one in
every region.

The squads are said to have a list of assassination
targets, includingpoliticians from the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) andtroublesome journalists.

Pagad activists have already
been linked to an assassination attempt againstMorgan Tsvangirai, the MDC
leader, in which his car was ambushed during therecent Bindura
by-election.

Tsvangirai alluded to the squads last week, when the local
independent pressrevealed that when Gadaffi's motorcade lumbered north on
its return fromHarare last month, the Libyan leader stopped off in Chinhoyi,
a whitefarming area 70 miles northwest of Harare, to give an incendiary
speechcalling on locals to throw out the whites.

It is difficult to
know how far the ripples of Gadaffi's intervention willspread, but
statistics show Zimbabwe is becoming increasingly unsafe.

The respected
Zimbabwean Human Rights Forum recently published a 46-pagereport in which it
details a catalogue of state-sponsored terror, includingassaults with whips,
batons, electricity, water and even melted plastic,dripped on to victims'
torsos and genitalia.

Nothing in Zimbabwe now lies beyond Mugabe's
tentacles of terror; even thegenteel realm of the Zimbabwean Cricket Union
is being subjected to theblack-power principle. Those who run it are now
under strict instructions topick more blacks for the national side, which
had been scheduled to playEngland later this year.

Mugabe is
sufficiently hard pressed to be willing to make alliances with alexicon of
pariah states. Besides Libya, the ranks of his foreign supportershave
dwindled to China - which last month extended a further £2.57m loan tohim -
North Korea, Iraq and a scattering of mainly impoverished Africanstates.
These include Sudan, where Mugabe has his eye on oil reserves.

The
Sudanese, like Gadaffi, are delighted to find a friend in need, andconfirm
that negotiations are under way.

Staff WriterSOUTH African Airways has stopped accepting
payments in Zimbabwean dollarsbecause of the Z$1billion it has accumulated
and which it has been unable torepatriate to South Africa.

Sources
said the airline, which accumulates about Z$200 million monthly, hasresorted
to the latest measures because of its failure to externalise
itsearnings.

It is understood that talks between finance and economic
developmentminister, Simba Makoni, and the airline, aimed at allowing SAA to
buyforeign currency on the black market, had failed to resolve the
issue.

Makoni is said to have told the airline that it would be illegal
for SAA tobuy forex on the black market. Airline officials took issue with
theminister on this, asking why they could not do so when the National
OilCompany of Zimbabwe (Noczim) had been allowed to obtain foreign currency
onthe black market.

Another airline, British Airways, is expected to
also stop acceptingZimbabwean dollars shortly.

Traffic at the Harare
International Airport is reported to have reached anall time low after some
airlines pulled out of Harare citing lawlessness andthe shortage of Jet A1
fuel.

The moves by the airlines to demand foreign currency for air
tickets islikely to impact badly on Zimbabweans, who have been leaving the
country indroves, mainly as economic refugees

WEALTHY Britons are organising a
"lifeboat" operation to help beleaguered white farmers leave Zimbabwe and start
a new life in Britain.

They are offering accommodation and
jobs to farmers fleeing from President Robert Mugabe's armed mobs. Fifty
families, mostly arriving here with little more than a suitcase full of
posessions, have already received assistance.

The rescue mission, the Zimbabwe
Farmers Trust, is being run from a Scottish glen by volunteers in the face of
apparent inaction by Whitehall.

Some of the farmers are being
advised to avoid British agriculture during its current crisis and to move on to
France, where they may be able to continue cultivating tobacco. The trust has
paid for one of them to see if there is suitable land in the Dordogne.

This weekend Sir Malcolm Rifkind,
the former foreign secretary and a prominent supporter of the rights of
Zimbabwe's British citizens, endorsed the trust.

But he said the farmers could not
expect special treatment from the government. "Obviously, they have got to be
treated sensitively and sympathetically. However, it would be difficult to have
rules which were different for any other destitute British person arriving from
any other part of the world."

David Wolseley Brinton, chairman of
the trust, which he runs from Chlenry Farmhouse, on a 43,000-acre estate at
Castle Kennedy, Stranraer, said: "We have historic obligations to these people,
some of whom fought for us in the second world war, yet they are being ignored
while the government becomes entangled in the Balkans."

Approximately 150 volunteers have
pledged to give up their second homes, or other vacant buildings, to provide
temporary accommodation in Britain to Zimbabwean families. There are an
estimated 25,000 British nationals in Zimbabwe. The trust's deputy chairman,
George Campbell-Johnson, is offering to find some of them jobs through several
recruitment companies he runs.

Martin Andrews, 39, a former farm
manager in Macheke, southeast of the capital, Harare, who arrived in Britain
with his family last October, has been provided with a cottage on Herriard Park
estate, near Basingstoke, thanks to the trust.

"Although we had planned our
departure for four months, when we left we could take only £350 in foreign
currency and we arrived with four suitcases," Andrews said. "I would not have
been able to pay rent during the first three months, before my wife and I found
jobs."

Tony Morkel, 51, a friend of Ian
Smith, the former Rhodesian prime minister, said the trust had attempted to help
him find a job in London on his arrival. He and his family have now moved to
Taunton.

"I know a lot of desperate people in
Zimbabwe who now know they will be safe once they have arrived at a British
airport," he said.

Desperate farmers are using the
internet to contact the trust. In one correspondence, seen by The Sunday Times,
a farmer wrote: "I have been arrested, slapped, chased off the farm and I'm
living in Harare at present, trying to farm over the telephone. My passport has
been confiscated and I am on bail. I've had enough."

There are fears that some of the
farmers may not have escaped the vengeance of Mugabe with their flight to
Britain. According to Wolseley Brinton, Mugabe's thugs are operating in Britain.
He says he knows one Zimbabwean who was lucky to survive earlier this year when
a driver attempted to run him over in London.

President Thabo Mbeki finally grasped
the nettle of Zimbabwe this week, working hard behind the scenes at the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) summit in Blantyre to ensure that the
region challenged President Robert Mugabe's handling of his country's growing
crisis.

Mugabe is likely to come under increasing pressure in the next
month or two from both SADC and leading African backers of Mbeki's Africa plan.

Mugabe still has some residual support in the Commonwealth where a task
team led by Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo has failed so far to make tangible
progress in resolving the conflict between Britain and Zimbabwe over land.

But diplomatic efforts are under way to ensure that Mugabe will get the
same cold shoulder at the Commonwealth summit in Brisbane, Australia, in October
that he got in Blantyre this week.

Mbeki's deft diplomatic manoeuvring
also ensured that his Africa plan, which has the backing of the eight
industrialised nations as well as Africa and the non-aligned movement, will be
born without the contamination that Mugabe's involvement in a leadership role
would have implied.

Zimbabwe was not even on the agenda of the SADC
summit before it started this week but Mbeki ensured that it was put near the
top once the meeting got under way. At last year's SADC summit in Windhoek,
Mugabe won the backing of SADC leaders.

This year, the SADC heads of
government brushed aside an attempt by Mugabe to win their support for his
controversial seizure of white farms and a condemnation of Britain, the former
colonial power, for failing to fund land redistribution.

And they
appointed a task team spearheaded by South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique to
address the problem, in effect telling Mugabe that he was not capable of
governing his country alone.

Sources said this team would meet possibly
as early as Sunday in Kampala where African leaders are gathered for the Smart
Partnership summit.

Several analysts have noted that the appointment of
the task team was a major setback for Mugabe since it will pry into his handling
of his country.

It has been briefed to consult all role players in
Zimbabwe, including white farmers, opposition parties and the government.

"If a country's neighbouring states decide to speak about their
brother's problems in public, it is, in diplomatic terms, tantamount to drawing
the line on its actions," Jakkie Cilliers of the Institute for Security Studies
in Pretoria said.

"The leaders of these three countries are not the type
who can be easily pushed around by Mugabe. It is obvious that they will implore
him to implement land reform within the context of the rule of law," said
another source.

"The fact that the leaders did not settle for a team
comprising Mugabe's friends like Namibia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of
Congo meant they were sending a very clear message to Mugabe that they want the
land issue resolved properly to avoid ripple effects into the entire region,"
the source said.

SADC sources said the leaders were also unusually frank
and critical of Mugabe in their closed sessions.

They said Swazi King
Mswati III had reflected the tone of the discussions when he later told
reporters that Mugabe's illegal seizure of white farms tarnished the reputation
of the whole region and that it had to be brought under control.

It was
generally a bad summit for Mugabe, who also lost his coveted five-year-long
chairmanship of the SADC organ for politics, defence and security, which he had
exploited fully as a regional power base.

Another possible blow to
Mugabe was that despite being among the top three economies of SADC, Zimbabwe
was not chosen to represent the region in the potentially powerful committee of
15 African nations that will drive the Millennium African Renaissance Plan, now
the New African Initiative.

South African government sources said the
need to advance the initiative was a strong incentive for Mbeki's intervention
at the summit.

Some official sources said that Mbeki's approach was to
warn Mugabe that he needed to take strong action to avoid a potential train
smash at the Commonwealth meeting. - Foreign Service

THE arrest in the early hours of Wednesday morning of Geoff
Nyarota, editor of the Daily News, and subsequently Bill Saidi, the assistant
editor together with other staff, was clearly designed to muzzle the paper as
government wakes up to the enormous public relations disaster its violent land
policy has spawned.

The move should be seen as part of a campaign to
harass and intimidate the small but vibrant independent press in the country as
President Mugabe fights for his political survival.

But instead of
placing a lid on the circulation of damaging reports about what has been
happening in recent days in Chinhoyi and the surrounding farmlands, this clumsy
move will no doubt generate further bad publicity and convince the public that
government has something to hide.

Despite the Herald’s mendacious
attempts yesterday to mislead its readers, the truth cannot be disguised. Zanu
PF is responsible for the wave of attacks on farmers, their families and
workers, and for the destruction and looting that has followed.

The
campaign could never have followed the path it did without state complicity and
indeed direction. It is manifestly a deliberate move to drive farmers off the
land.

The police wanted to charge Nyarota and his colleagues with
spreading a false report that was calculated to cause “alarm and despondency”.
This was in connection with a report in the Daily News on Tuesday that police
vehicles had been used during the looting on the farms around Mhangura. John
Nkomo indignantly told the BBC the Daily News journalists had committed a crime
under “our” Law and Order (Maintenance) Act

Now it transpires they were
unlawfully arrested because that section of the Act was last year struck down by
the Supreme Court as oppressive. The Minister of Home Affairs, it seems, is
ignorant of the law.

So are the police who had no ca-use to pick
somebody up at that time of the night anyway.

Now they want to charge
them under an ancient law on criminal defamation that has been struck down in
other Commonwealth jurisdictions as incompatible with democr-atic free- doms. In
reality they are guilty only of doing their job — telling readers what is really
hap- pening on the farms and elsewhere.

The government is
extraordinarily sensitive to the charge of com- plicity in lawlessness. It is
attempting to convince the outside world, in particular Commonwealth leaders
ahead of the Brisbane Chogm, that whatever may have occurred in the past,
Zimbabwe is now following the letter of the law. We all know that is
fiction.

Indeed, the world saw what President Mugabe means by “land
reform” when pictures were screened on Monday and Tuesday nights by the BBC
showing the destruction of farm houses and farm records, making it as difficult
as possible for the owners to return.

It is this contrast between what
government claims to be doing and the reality on the ground that it is now
trying to disguise. But it cannot hide the truth. This is a violent and lawless
campaign at complete variance with assurances given to the international
community.

The police are complicit in so far as they refused to act in
numerous reported cases of assault, damage to property and theft. In many cases
they have arrested the victims of violence and farm workers defending their
employer’s property. Very few farm invaders have been arrested; many have
escaped with the looted property.

Targeting newspapers that make life
uncomfortable for the government by exposing its duplicity will not solve the
problem of bad publicity. Rather it will compound it.

The terrible truth
about a government at war with its own citizens because they had the temerity to
exercise their rights through the courts or support the opposition is a story
that won’t lie down.

Defenceless rural communities, deprived of the
protection to which they are entitled under the law, have been the worst hit by
state-driven criminality. But town-dwellers and businesses are also affected.

As the government becomes more desperate, so it will increasingly use
the police to impose its will and punish its critics — even using draconian
colonial laws that it has repeatedly pledged to repeal. But it cannot subdue a
whole nation. And no matter how many journalists they arrest, the independent
press will go on doing its job — telling it like it is.

ZANU PF will have to rethink its survival strategy.
Violence or no violence, it appears the Bulawayo mayoral seat won’t come cheap
for the party. For one, the people of Matabeleland are fed up with promises of
development that are never fulfilled. And they have made their position against
violence very clear: Bulawayo is a no-go area for the Zanu PF election monster,
Joseph Brown Chinotimba.

“We want a non-violent campaign of persuasion,”
said the Bulawayo provincial executive. “We don’t want a situation which will
damage the party’s reputation.”

It’s a bit late to worry about that! But
the tacit admission that violence doesn’t always pay is nevertheless useful to
have. Chinotimba has also been barred from leading Zanu PF campaigns in
Chikomba district to replace the late Hitler Hunzvi.

Should sanity
prevail in the party, that should force the eccentric Chinotimba back to his job
as a driver in the Harare city council. Without violence he will be of no use to
the party.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Mail this week bravely tried to prove
that Chinotimba was not a refugee as alleged by Wilfred Mhanda but that he had
actually fought in Zimbabwe’s liberation war by producing a photograph of a
young man posing with a gun. We couldn’t recognise the face. But the picture
raises more questions than it answers.

Who was it who had time to take
colour pictures of Chinotimba when others were dodging bullets and shrapnel in
the bush? When and where was the picture taken? And how come no senior people in
Zanla — except Constantine Chiwenga whose wife heads a Zanu PF front outfit —
can recall seeing Chinotimba anywhere near the war front?

These are
issues that need to be thoroughly investigated to set the record straight,
including explaining the source of Chinotimba’s sudden riches accumulated during
farm invasions last year and company occupations this year.

The Heroes’
holiday is come and gone. Unfortunately it was not as national as it was
originally meant to be. Typically, Zanu PF has appropriated this occasion to
berate all and sundry as if all those who died for the country carried a Zanu PF
badge. And it seems to have carried its culture of violence to the national
shrine where we saw one youth in an MDC T-shirt being beaten up by Zanu PF
thugs.

What is the point of Zanu PF political leaders inviting people to
come in their thousands and then beating up those who belong to parties other
than Zanu PF?

In Bulawayo a number of patriotic Zimbabweans had to leave
the provincial shrine when Vice-President Joseph Msika asked everybody present
to chant Zanu PF slogans. As one angry Bulawayo resident remarked, Mbuya Nehanda
whose memory the ruling party has abused over the years, did not belong to Zanu
PF.

The heroes of the First and Second Chimurenga did not have narrow,
selfish agendas espoused by the current leadership. That is why they appealed to
all Zimbabweans and are respected by people from completely different
backgrounds.

But Zanu PF has failed to rise to a national party that
champions a national agenda. It matters very little how many Va Postori Zanu PF
tries to lure to such occasions, if the purpose is to use the occasion for its
own campaigns many peace-loving Zimbabweans would rather stay at home.

So the Zanu PF youth soccer league was cancelled at the National Sports
Stadium on Saturday because the youths would not take orders from their
superiors? What a shame.

The youths from Mashonaland West (where else?)
defied their leaders Absolom Sikhosana and Saviour Kasukuwere and invaded the
pitch, hopefully in “a peaceful demonstration” until the match was called off.

Chairman of the league Lloyd Hove said he had been shocked by this
unruly behaviour. We were not. Nor were those living on the farms who have
endured these invasions since last year’s watershed constitutional referendum.

Kasukuwere and Sikhosana know where the youths came from. The 200
delinquents were perhaps the same mob used to harass people prior to the recent
by-election and Kasukuwere was happy enough to defend them then. At least for
now the football pandemonium has not been blamed on the MDC and the British!

A little learning is a dangerous thing, they say. And George Charamba
gave us a good example of the validity of that maxim when he tried to deny
reports that President Mugabe is looking bloated.

We have been getting
queries here at the Independent for several weeks asking if we had noticed a
certain puffiness of late about the president’s features. Yes we have. He is
definitely looking different — and we don’t mean the hair dye he has been
applying for some time in a vain battle against ageing.

But Charamba,
instead of calmly denying that there was anything wrong with the president,
launched into a clumsy Jonathan Moyo-type tirade against the newspaper that had
raised the issue — the Standard.

Denying that he had made any comment to
the Standard, Charamba suggested the paper’s editor had interviewed his
typewriter “which I am sure does not have an African surname, let alone
perspective”.

Speculation about the president’s health was “ageing
standard Rhodesian propaganda”, Charamba claimed in what probably passes for a
pun at Munhumutapa Building where they are evidently still using typewriters —
presumably made by hitherto unknown patriotic African manufacturers.

But
Charamba’s tomfoolery apart, how do we explain the change in Mugabe’s appearance
which was evident from the Herald front page picture on Wednesday? Specialists
we spoke to said his face shows signs of cortisone treatment.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t take us much further forward in any
diagnosis of what ails him as cortisone is used as an anti-inflammatory drug in
a number of conditions and produces what is called a “moon face” — rounder and
softer.

What would be helpful is an honest response from the Zanu PF
officials at the President’s Office who although paid from the public purse
appear to think they are unaccountable as well as unprofessional. If there is
anything wrong with the president — apart of course from what is obvious — then
the public have a right to know.

Somebody phoned in last week to ask why
Mugabe is calling his ministers cowards when he is responsible for the most
obvious act of cowardice: sending armed mobs to attack farmers and their
families when they are unable to defend themselves — and then forbidding the
police from intervening?

This is a good point. Mugabe emits a steady
torrent of abuse, incitement and threats from the safety of State House without
at any point risking his own safety and comfort. Who is the real coward here?
And what of those that go along with him instead of having the courage, like
Nkosana Moyo, to stand up to him?

Our old friend Olley Maruma has burst
back into print, having found refuge — like a number of scribblers from the
Sunday Mail — at the Zimbabwe Mirror.

Here he has rekindled a
longstanding grievance against the Independent for daring to challenge his
nationalist posturing in the pages of the Mail.

Last Friday he took the
opportunity to hurl a few fresh barbs against what he calls “disgraceful” media
detractors of Zimbabwe’s Congo intervention. He accuses these “detractors”
of risking the security of Zimbabwe’s soldiers in the Congo and “praying for the
defeat and embarrassment of our forces”.

“For the most part they
pilloried Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DRC as a waste of public resources,
dishonestly trying to portray Sadc’s regional security initiative on the Congo
as the irrational and illogical act of Robert Mugabe, ‘an adventurer and a
madman’.”

We don’t recall any paper using those words, but if Maruma
thinks they fit who are we to quarrel? But why does he think it served the
national interest for the government to spend millions of US dollars a month
propping up the corrupt and tyrannical regime of Laurent Kabila when Zimbabwe’s
social services — most notably its hospitals — were collapsing from neglect?

Why does he think we should have been diverting scarce resources to the
Congo war when there was no foreign currency for fuel and power needs? Is it
not the duty of any government to put its own people first?

Zimbabwe’s
rulers gave priority to Kabila. Money that could have been used for social
services, infrastructure, and land redistribution was instead squandered in a
war that Zimbabweans did not support and which this country had no prospect of
winning.

During the period of the war from 1998 to the present the
country’s economy has further deteriorated, in part because Mugabe and those
around him have continued to make decisions that are manifestly contrary to the
country’s interests.

Let’s have no more misguided claptrap about
betraying our boys in the jungle. They were betrayed by the people who sent them
there.

We are interested to see that several of South Africa’s most
prominent black editors have been pointing out that if the subject of
reparations for slavery is to be raised at the forthcoming conference on racism
in Durban, then the Arabs should be required to account for their role. In
particular, Col Gaddafi should be made to cough up.

Commenting on
Gaddafi’s attempt to buy support at the recent OAU summit, Mathatha Tsedu,
deputy chief executive of news at SABC and former deputy editor of the Star,
said “Libya supplied Zambians with banners extolling the virtues of Libya and
Gaddafi who went on walkabouts throwing money at people”.

And Tsedu does
not spare our own leader.

“When Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe
allows Gaddafi to do his dramatics of a 100-car convoy through the country,
throwing money at Zimbabweans, my heart sinks,” he said.

“For indeed one
expects Mugabe to live by the dictum of dying in dignity rather than living in
shame, which is what he has reduced Zimbabwe to.”

Africans will have to
raise the issue of “whether it is time to treat the Arab north as colonised
territory that must be liberated. The arrogance that flows from there just
stinks sometimes,” Tsedu said referring to the treatment Africans sometimes
receive in countries like Egypt.

“If we don’t (raise it), the noble
intentions of the African Union to create dignity for Africans will sound more
and more hollow,” he said.

Muckraker would add something to that. If
reparations are to be paid for slavery and colonialism, why are African
dictators who have looted their country’s resources not also made to pay back
what they have stolen, lost or misused? Several examples come to mind!

We were pleased to see the Herald’s designation of “war veterans” and
“resettled farmers” has now changed to “looters”. But Wayne Bvudzijena’s tune
remains the same. He parrots what he is told to say by the Ministry of
Information.

“We arrest people on the availability of evidence,” he told
the Herald. “We don’t just jump because the CFU says jump...we jump at an
appropriate time.”

In fact the police jump when politicians, not a sense
of duty, tell them to. Most of the time however they fold their arms and watch.
That includes the burning of farmsteads, the destruction of records, the killing
of livestock and the looting of farm equipment.

Bvudzijena is now
threatening to “investigate” three officers in Chinhoyi who treated the arrested
farmers with compassion and civility by supplying them with decent clothes. As
Mike Auret said in parliament this week, the police are a disgrace to their
uniform and the Nation.

Zanu PF supporters are agitating for the return
and burial at Heroes Acre of the remains of Herbert Chitepo’s car. This campaign
has our full support. Nothing could be more emblematic of Zanu PF rule than a
wrecked and burnt out vehicle. Herbert Chitepo would be appalled by what has
happened to his legacy.

The Hwedza farming family who had been barricaded in their home
on Friday finally escaped from their farmstead at 3:00 pm yesterday. The farmer,
his wife, and their two young children had tried to leave at 4:00 am, but were
prevented by the gang of Zanu PF thugs outside the security fence. Police were
called, and a detail did attend the farm, but did nothing and left again.

War veterans besieging the farm, where the workforce had on
Friday sought shelter inside the fenced-off area surrounding the house, forced
the farmworkers to attend an all-night pungwe – the lengthy political
intimidation meetings which have been a favoured tactic of Zanu PF thugs since
the early 1970’s. Extended sessions of slogan chanting – in support of the party
and its president - accompanied by the ritual denunciation of all who oppose
him, are standard features of these meetings. The singling-out of ‘sellouts’,
who are often humiliated and beaten in front of the crowd, is a frequent
occurrence.

All the fences on the farm have been broken, and the gang
demanded that the cattle be moved off the farm and the workforce paid off. The
farmer was frogmarched to the farm safe, where its contents were taken, but
there was not sufficient cash to placate the gang, who demanded to see the
books. Workers from another farm were brought in to trash the tobacco seedbeds.
Police were again contacted, but they referred the farmer to the District
Administrator, who was not available.

In all, the farmworkers from 16 farms in the Hwedza district
have been forced to flee. One farm is still missing a truck which is being used
to move the marauding gangs around the area. There is a lot of attempted
extortion. The workers have been instructed to beat anybody seen taking
photographs. The farms themselves are mostly deserted, with a few Zanu PF thugs
living in the workers quarters.

From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 19
August

Zimbabwe snubs Red Cross offer to
shelter refugees

Hwedza - The government of Zimbabwe has refused permission to
the International Committee of the Red Cross to set up refugee camps for black
farm labourers forced off their land in the latest wave of looting and
occupations by militant supporters of Robert Mugabe. Thousands of starving farm
workers and their wives and children are wandering aimlessly around the
outskirts of Harare in search of food and shelter from the Zimbabwean winter.
Many are from Hwedza, a once prosperous tobacco-growing area 50 miles east of
the capital, where so-called war veterans and militants from the ruling Zanu PF
went on the rampage last week, driving farm workers before them like cattle.

There were fears yesterday that the anarchy would spread after
Ignatius Chombo, the chairman of the government's National Land Taskforce, said
that all blacks who had been allocated plots on confiscated white-owned farms
must move on to their new land by August 31. The deadline is likely to provoke a
fresh wave of farm occupations. The Hwedza attacks followed raids the previous
week in the farming towns of Chinhoyi and Doma in which 45 farms were wrecked
and burnt and 21 white farmers arrested. Black farmworkers have also become the
target of attacks in a new tactic that has brought farming to a halt at a busy
time of year.

The fleeing workers initially camped outside police stations
and government offices but armed police moved families on. They now wander the
district in search of help, huddling together at night to keep warm. Most have
been wearing the same clothes since they were herded from their homes by
chanting youths. Speaking of her ordeal, Louisa Gwatidzo, a farm labourer's
wife, wept as she said: "They just came and ordered everyone to pack up and
leave and said that anyone found in any of the houses would be in trouble. We
are in the middle of the month and I don't have any money to transport my goods
or buy food. I don't know where my children will go to school."

According to Malcolm Vowles, the deputy director of the
Commercial Farmers' Union, workers from 16 farms in Hwedza have been evicted.
Farming in the area has been brought to a standstill. "From this whole area
alone the country is going to lose 352,000lb of tobacco and 19,600 tons of
paprika," said one Hwedza farmer. The ransacking of farms in Hwedza continued
yesterday and a mob screamed, "You white British bitch", at a woman barricaded
in her homestead with her husband. While white farmers usually have friends to
stay with, farm workers have nowhere to go. They fear that if they stay in one
place they will be picked up by marauding bands of Zanu PF militants and herded
into camps for "re-education", the euphemism used by the party for public
beatings.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that a request from the Red
Cross to provide shelter for the traumatised families has been refused by the
Zimbabwean government. The camps might also be used to house white farmers in
the event that they were unable to find shelter with friends or security
deteriorated on the roads. They could also be used as assembly points for a mass
evacuation of Europeans. Last week British and European diplomats held meetings
to review plans for an armoured convoy to move their citizens out to Mozambique
and South Africa if conditions worsen.

Twenty-five thousand British nationals are registered with the
British High Commission but there are believed to be as many as 40,000 in
Zimbabwe. Many farmers are angry that international aid agencies have done
nothing about the worsening humanitarian plight. "The silence is sinister,"
complained Kerry Kay, a farmer's wife who heads the Farm Orphans' Trust. "Not
one of these aid organisations has said a thing." The strongest criticism is
reserved for the British Government. "What more does Mugabe have to do before
they will speak out?" asked one. "Do we have to wait until we have Taliban-style
public executions?"

From The Australian, 19
August

Mugabe: I'm coming to
Brisbane

Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe says he is coming to CHOGM,
but he has not informed the Australian Government. A spokesman for President
Mugabe in the nation's capital Harare told The Sunday Mail a Zimbabwean
entourage would be in Brisbane for the October event. But confusion still
surrounds Mr Mugabe's attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting, with the Zimbabwe High Commission in Canberra giving conflicting
answers. On Wednesday an anonymous spokesman at the high commission said he had
no formal confirmation of Mr Mugabe's visit. But on Thursday, the high
commission's Joel Muzuwa said the president was coming. Neither the Queensland
nor Australian Government has received confirmation of Mr Mugabe's
attendance.

A Howard Government MP has called for Mr Mugabe to be banned
from CHOGM, calling him a"dangerous, malicious dictator". Parliamentary
Secretary Peter Slipper said Mr Mugabe's presence would endanger Brisbane
residents through violent street protests. "This man is a dangerous, malicious
dictator who has recently pursued a vicious personal vendetta against white
Zimbabwean farmers," he said. "He should have absolutely no right whatsoever to
come to Brisbane and stand on the world stage with leaders of the Commonwealth.
Nobody in Brisbane should have to live in fear because a dictator like Robert
Mugabe is wandering the streets."

Mr Muzuwa said: "He is coming like all the other Commonwealth
leaders. There is no reason why he should not come." Mr Mugabe's bodyguards have
several times attacked protesters when he has travelled abroad. "He will bring
his own security like every other Commonwealth leader," Mr Muzuwa said. He
declined to reveal when Mr Mugabe would arrive for the meeting. The spokesman in
Harare said Mr Mugabe was looking forward to the meeting and there was no
question he would be there.

The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group is expected to debate
next month whether Zimbabwe should be excluded from CHOGM but Commonwealth
Secretary-General Don McKinnon has said he is not aware of any move to stop the
country being represented. Mr Mugabe's presence is expected to boost the level
of protest at the meeting. The three biggest protest groups - CHOGM Free Zone,
Stop CHOGM and the Anti-CHOGM Alliance - have all listed Mr Mugabe's attendance
as a major factor in their demonstrations.

From The Sunday Independent (SA), 19
August

Mbeki task team turns the screws on
Mugabe

President Thabo Mbeki finally grasped the nettle of Zimbabwe
this week, working hard behind the scenes at the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) summit in Blantyre to ensure that the region challenged
President Robert Mugabe's handling of his country's growing crisis. Mugabe is
likely to come under increasing pressure in the next month or two from both SADC
and leading African backers of Mbeki's Africa plan. Mugabe still has some
residual support in the Commonwealth where a task team led by Nigeria's Olusegun
Obasanjo has failed so far to make tangible progress in resolving the conflict
between Britain and Zimbabwe over land. But diplomatic efforts are under way to
ensure that Mugabe will get the same cold shoulder at the Commonwealth summit in
Brisbane, Australia, in October that he got in Blantyre this week.

Mbeki's deft diplomatic manoeuvring also ensured that his
Africa plan, which has the backing of the eight industrialised nations as well
as Africa and the non-aligned movement, will be born without the contamination
that Mugabe's involvement in a leadership role would have implied. Zimbabwe was
not even on the agenda of the SADC summit before it started this week but Mbeki
ensured that it was put near the top once the meeting got under way. At last
year's SADC summit in Windhoek, Mugabe won the backing of SADC leaders. This
year, the SADC heads of government brushed aside an attempt by Mugabe to win
their support for his controversial seizure of white farms and a condemnation of
Britain, the former colonial power, for failing to fund land redistribution.

And they appointed a task team spearheaded by South Africa,
Botswana and Mozambique to address the problem, in effect telling Mugabe that he
was not capable of governing his country alone. Sources said this team would
meet possibly as early as Sunday in Kampala where African leaders are gathered
for the Smart Partnership summit. Several analysts have noted that the
appointment of the task team was a major setback for Mugabe since it will pry
into his handling of his country. It has been briefed to consult all role
players in Zimbabwe, including white farmers, opposition parties and the
government.

"If a country's neighbouring states decide to speak about their
brother's problems in public, it is, in diplomatic terms, tantamount to drawing
the line on its actions," Jakkie Cilliers of the Institute for Security Studies
in Pretoria said. "The leaders of these three countries are not the type who can
be easily pushed around by Mugabe. It is obvious that they will implore him to
implement land reform within the context of the rule of law," said another
source. "The fact that the leaders did not settle for a team comprising Mugabe's
friends like Namibia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo meant they
were sending a very clear message to Mugabe that they want the land issue
resolved properly to avoid ripple effects into the entire region," the source
said.

SADC sources said the leaders were also unusually frank and
critical of Mugabe in their closed sessions. They said Swazi King Mswati III had
reflected the tone of the discussions when he later told reporters that Mugabe's
illegal seizure of white farms tarnished the reputation of the whole region and
that it had to be brought under control. It was generally a bad summit for
Mugabe, who also lost his coveted five-year-long chairmanship of the SADC organ
for politics, defence and security, which he had exploited fully as a regional
power base. Another possible blow to Mugabe was that despite being among the top
three economies of SADC, Zimbabwe was not chosen to represent the region in the
potentially powerful committee of 15 African nations that will drive the
Millennium African Renaissance Plan, now the New African Initiative. South
African government sources said the need to advance the initiative was a strong
incentive for Mbeki's intervention at the summit. Some official sources said
that Mbeki's approach was to warn Mugabe that he needed to take strong action to
avoid a potential train smash at the Commonwealth meeting.

From The Zimbabwe Standard, 19
August

MDC plans high-powered CHOGM
mission

The Movement for Democratic Change will send a high-powered
delegation to the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
in Brisbane, Australia, for talks with the various world leaders expected to be
assembled there. Morgan Tsvangirai, the party’s leader, told The Standard on
Friday that the MDC would make representations to world leaders at the meeting,
in order to highlight the crisis in Zimbabwe. The meeting will run from 6 to 9
October. "We will send an early delegation to Brisbane. CHOGM does not provide
for the accreditation of opposition parties so we won’t be able to attend the
actual meeting. But our delegation will have done the groundwork. We have to
talk to a number of people and raise their awareness about what is happening in
Zimbabwe," said Tsvangirai. He was unable to divulge the names of the world
leaders his party intends to talk to. Tsvangirai said his party would urge the
Commonwealth leaders to put pressure on Mugabe to end state-sponsored violence
and lawlessness. "We will raise issues of governance and the issue of Mugabe’s
violation of the Harare Declaration. Zimbabwe is a signatory to that declaration
and we insist that Mugabe sticks to its terms. He cannot continue to violate the
declaration with impunity, he has to answer for it," said Tsvangirai.

At CHOGM in Harare in 1991, the leaders pledged to work for the
protection and promotion of the fundamental political values of the association
which include democratic processes and institutions which reflect national
circumstances, fundamental human rights, the rule of law and the independence of
the judiciary. Zimbabwe is likely to be brought on to the agenda because of its
violation of the declaration. Since the rejection of its draft constitution in
February last year, the government has suspended the rule of law in order to
push its agenda of a chaotic and illegal land reform programme. War veterans and
Zanu PF supporters have unleashed terror on the farms, on rural school teachers,
and on some members of the judiciary because of their failure to endorse the
haphazard land programme.

A number of judges, including former Chief Justice Anthony
Gubbay, have been forced off the bench because of judgments which have been
contrary to the government’s land reform approach. The police has also come
under severe criticism for its alleged selective application of the law. It has
hastened to arrest opposition officials but has proved reluctant to act in the
face of misdemeanours by senior ruling party officials. According to the
declaration, a country which violates its tenets risks being suspended from the
club’s meetings. Said one source within the Commonwealth: "A certain hot topic
at the Brisbane meeting will be the human rights record of member governments,
particularly Zimbabwe and Fiji."

Zimbabwe risks being expelled from the Commonwealth because of
its poor human rights record. Pressure has been mounting from various
organisations and human rights activists for the Commonwealth to act strongly
against Mugabe. Still others, such as the gay and human rights activist, Peter
Tatchell, have been mobilising for Mugabe’s arrest. Sources within the
Commonwealth have told The Standard that members had given Mugabe until the
Brisbane meeting, to return the country to a sound democratic condition or risk
being censured. Tsvangirai said although his party was against sanctions being
imposed on Zimbabwe, it would support any other measures intended to pile
pressure on Mugabe to force him to do the right thing. However, he said the MDC
was against the idea of Mugabe’s arrest.

From The Zimbabwe Standard, 19
August

Heroes Acre has lost glory, says
Zvobgo

Zanu PF stalwart and MP for Masvingo South, Dr Eddison Zvobgo,
has said that the honour of being buried at the national Heroes Acre in Harare
is no more. Speaking a day after the Heroes Day commemorations in the Masvingo
farming area last weekend, Zvobgo said while the national shrine used to be the
resting place for people who had shown consistency in uplifting the country, one
now had to "campaign" vigorously to be declared a hero. He was speaking at the
funeral of Danidzirai Makamure, the former Masvingo deputy regional director for
education, at Farm 19 in the Masema area of Gutu, about 80 km east of Masvingo
town.

"This man is lucky that he is being buried at his own Heroes
Acre here on his farm, because the Heroes Acre that we have come to know of has
lost its glory. Even in death, one now has to campaign to be granted hero
status," said Zvobgo. "Here lies an unsung hero who played a sterling role in
the liberation of this country, but never breast-beat himself about what he did
and achieved. There are some in our midst whose roles are so obscure; they take
every opportunity to remind others about what role they played. There are some
political bandwagoners who abuse their mentors’ hospitality by wanting to
dictate the course of events. In our party we have such visitors, yet there are
veterans who have never wavered in the cause of our liberation," said Zvobgo
earlier during a church service for Makamure.

The former minister becomes the second high-ranking Zanu PF
official, after Edgar Tekere in the 1990s, to write off the honour of being
buried at the National Shrine. Tekere said then that he did not want to be
buried at Heroes Acre and have "people speechifying over my dead body." Zvobgo
also took a swipe at leaders who cling to power instead of retiring gracefully
to pave way for their successors. He likened the refusal of one to hand over
power to the mentality of a madman who, when given the relay baton during a
race, flees with it into the mountains instead of passing it on to the next
runner. He told the mourners last week: "Once upon a time, a psychiatric patient
at Ngomahuru hospital joined a relay race with other patients. Instead of
passing the baton onto the next person, he ran into the adjacent hill with the
baton," said Zvobgo.

Meanwhile, sources said there were now moves to bring Zvobgo
and Dzikamai Mavhaire back into the fold because of the unpopularity of the new
executive led by higher education and technology minister, Samuel Mumbengegwi.
Masvingo made history when it became the first local authority to have an
opposition mayor when the Movement for Democratic Change’s Alois Chaimiti
trounced Zanu PF candidate, Joseph Chademana, to land the top civic job. A Zanu
PF politburo member has been tasked with making overtures to Zvobgo and
Mavhaire, who are believed to wield enough power to drum up support for the
party ahead of next year’s presidential elections. The plan would see the
Masvingo governor, Josaya Hungwe, being given a diplomatic posting, possibly to
Malawi, and a fusion of the current provincial executive with Zvobgo faction
members.

From The Daily News, 18
August

Police officers trapped in lift at
Daily News offices

The arrest on Tuesday night of Geoffrey Nyarota, the
Editor-in-Chief of The Daily News, by the police came a few hours after four
police officers were trapped in a lift for about two hours on the second floor
of Trustee House, the paper’s head office, along Harare’s Samora Machel Avenue.
The four were trapped while they were on their way to see Nyarota, in connection
with the story published by the paper on that day, which alleged use of police
vehicles in farm lootings in the Doma, Lions’ Den and Mhangura areas last
weekend.

The officers were trapped in the lift at about 8pm and were
only rescued around 11.30pm. The doors leading from the floor to the stairway
were locked after a computer company that leased the floor moved out. Nyarota
said yesterday he believes that the police erroneously thought that either he or
The Daily News had something to do with the incident. Nyarota said he left his
office at about 9pm and went to the newsroom on the mezzanine floor, using the
stairway after a security guard told him the elevator was not working. Unknown
to him, the policemen were already stuck in the lift. Nyarota was in the
newsroom for about 40 minutes before going home.

He said three officers, an Assistant Commissioner Lunga,
Assistant Inspector Boysen Mathema, the Officer-in-Charge of the Law and Order
(Maintenance) Section, and an unidentified officer, arrived at his home at about
12.30am. "During the discussion they said their colleagues were trapped in the
lift at Trustee House," said Nyarota. "By the way they put it to me, they
implied that either I or The Daily News was responsible. They were quite adamant
about it." He said he told them that The Daily News was only a tenant in the
building and had nothing to do with the lifts. There has been no response from
the police on the matter as they are under strict instructions from police
spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena, not to speak to The Daily
News.

I WAS persuaded recently to listen to a Friday evening
debate on the land issue in Shona on Radio 2. The participants were from Zanu
PF, the MDC and the UZ. I will refer to the Zanu PF man as “the spokesman”.

He gave a hard-hitting, uncompromising, and blood-curdling message. He
also rudely interrupted the other speakers. His message was that the Mabhunu
(derogatory term for all whites) are thieves.

They stole the land. And
every bit of it must be taken back. Not only the farms, but also, he said, all
the businesses belong to the Mabhunu and all the blacks are working for them.
This situation must be resolved.

The spokesman said that this is a war
and in a war people must die. He said this war actually began in 1890 and must
be brought to its conclusion now. The Mabhunu, he said, are historically the
shedders of blood. The MDC man seemed more concerned about missing out on their
share of the loot.

The UZ contributions were unclear and it sounded as
if they sided with the spokesman.

Allow me as a Mubhunu to speak my
heart without malice.

l What a compliment (although untrue) that we are
the sole employers of blacks! At least we are doing our bit to avoid 100%
unemployment.

That this is a war is obvious, what with “base camps”,
“base commanders”, and the chanting of war songs about Mabhunu blood? Doesn’t
sound like agriculture!

l My brain says to me: “White man, flee!” but my
faith says to me: “Don’t, there is a God in heaven whose sword is already drawn
— stay put!” The venom of the spokesman’s words convinces me that the
Mabhunu are only amateur racists and actually have far more room in their hearts
for other shades of people.

I am old enough to have seen many Ma-bhunu
in all walks of life, helping black people with dedication and personal
sacrifice. The spokesman, no doubt, benefited directly or indirectly with not
the least acknowledgement.

l Thieves. Maybe some Mabhunu are, but the
glass-house from which the spokesman casts his stones is particularly fragile.
Why did the povo cry: “Please let whites rather distribute the famine relief?”

If Mabhunu thieving built this country up from virgin bush to almost
first world standard, it is certainly not Mabhunu thieving which is now reducing
it to the bottom of the third world.

l The cost of security has become a
significant part of the cost of living, and unemployability is fast overtaking
unemployment, while thieva- bility is becoming the main consideration before
embarking on any enterprise. It never used to be so.

While there is a
strong tendency to claim poverty as the excuse for thieving, the truth is that
there is an inverse ratio. The poorer folks are the more honest.

l If
over the past two decades enough Mabhu-nu aid money has been poured into this
country to put one million dollars into every individual’s pocket, why has it
not reached the povo?

l There seems to be a general paranoia over the
Mabhunu tendency to have their own social circles. Yet this is a most natural
phenomenon. It is important to minority groups all over the world. And it is
something the Mabhunu have never wi-shed to deny other people.

Let us
now look at the land.

From the beginning, commercial farming was vital
for the development of the country. That required farms. Has Zimbabwe developed
or has it not? What was it like a century and a half ago? The question is not
who’s got how much land, rather it is how much land is commercially farmed and
how much commercial farming is needed to keep the wheels of the economy turning?

An axe and badza economy will not even feed half the present population,
and when the first drought comes, disaster will strike. Commercial farming is a
tractor and harvester economy, a paddock and pasture economy, a game fence and
safari-camp economy. It cannot be confined to plots.

The economy of
commercial farming creates employment, feeds the cities, brings in foreign
currency, and conserves the ecology. Commercial farming up to now, covering less
than a quarter of the country, is non-racial, its doors are open, its
organisation transparent, efficient and passionately loyal to Zimbabwe and its
people.

Successful commercial farmers are the survivors of a very severe
economic culling process. Their multiple expertise has earned them the
recognition of the world. Why hate them for it?

Two-thirds of the
country is tribally settled with small-holder lands and communal grazing. It is
home — kumusha. Even to most city dwellers. As such it is vitally important. But
employment is crucial to its economy. Smallholder agriculture, while playing
a vital subsistence role, has severe limitations. Its economy is too small to
create the necessary infrastructures that are needed to attain full
productivity.

The poverty of, and the pressures on, the communal lands
can best be alleviated by employment. That makes the viability of commercial
farms all the more important. Reduce it and you compound the crisis.

Those poor “landless” who have actually got land but are too poor to
make a viable input into it need to be helped in other ways.

Zimbabwe
has got cropping country, cattle country and game country. How disastrous to
settle unsuitable areas to a cropping economy!

More than half of
Zimbabwe’s grazing lands are free for all and unmanaged. Their correct
utilisation in the less arable zones would far out-yield crops. How tragic that
ranches are being dismantled for the sake of less that 5% of the area being put
to patchy fields of doubtful yields?

The whole picture, in its entirety,
cries out for some sort of dovetailing of the two sectors. The Mabhunu could be,
and would like to be, the povo’s best friends. Only remove the artificial malice
and benefits will flow.

But now you have created a political platform
which is simply a “for or against”. For the Mabhunu or against them. In the
spokesman’s eyes, it seems to be an unforgivable crime, which has cost some
people their lives, to dare to associate with the Mabhunu.

l Dermot
Brown is a nom de plume of a commercial farmer from Masvingo.

Roy Bennet & David Coltart HARDLINERS (or hawks) within government, who seem to be
dominating events, are strong African nationalists who see “land” as their last
means of holding onto power. They are prepared to sacrifice a large proportion
of the economy to achieve this. The question is how much? The doves, headed by
Simba Makoni, are more economically minded, but have failed to influence events
as had been hoped. We must presume that we are stuck with the hawks as long as
we have Zanu PF.

The violence and aggression of Zanu PF is driven by
fear. Why are they reacting to events in such a manner? The more afraid they
are, the more violent they become. We need to draw hope from this bizarre
scenario.

Their main strategy is to destroy their political opponents
and the middle class whom they identify as the Movement for Democratic Change.
They do this brazenly and if there is any reaction, the police have clear
instructions to arrest the reactors.

Who in government’s mind comprises
the MDC? Whether it is true or not is another question, but Zanu PF view all of
the following with suspicion: the ZCTU, teachers, the NCA, white businessmen,
certain black businessmen, commercial farmers, farm labourers, the urban middle
class, the whole of Matabeleland and most of Manicaland. Apart from the communal
people who else is there?

The war veterans have been told that they can
get away with anything except murder (and even this at times). Particularly on
farms, we have had it confirmed that the war veterans have a clear agenda of
provocation so that farmers will either be arrested for violence or for
provoking violence. Zanu PF admit to being confused and dumfounded by lack of
retaliation on the part of farmers and this summarises the position of the
party.

Let us be clear, there is no future under a Zanu PF government.
It is naive and short-sighted to believe that a leopard can change its spots!
As Zimbabweans, wh-ere do we stand? From where can we draw hope in these
dark times? We can take heart because our friends and allies are all around us,
common Zimbabweans, if only we would open our eyes and hearts. They, like us,
are crying out for change.

We can also take heart from the amazing
resilience and heroism of farmers. They have been at the cutting edge for 15
months. We will not let them down. We can take heart from the fact that brave
men and women in the MDC have risked their lives to offer the people of Zimbabwe
a credible alternative to Zanu PF. We must not let them down by supping with the
devil.

The MDC is a steadfastly democratic party which is determined to
introduce democratic governance to this country for the first time. Let us bear
in mind that this country has never yet experienced democracy. The MDC is a
non-violent party committed to the rule of law, and this will be reintroduced
immediately an MDC govern- ment is installed.

It must be remembered that
the majority of Zimbabweans serving in both the police and the armed forces are
professional people whose morale is at an all-time low as a result of the
installation of — in most cases — incompetent Zanu PF sycophants to the most
senior posts. They are, generally, as unhappy at the break down of law and order
as we are. Yet they are constitutionally bound to serve the government of the
day.

The MDC is a party committed to ensuring that there exists an
enabling macroeconomic environment which will be investor friendly without
sacrificing the Zimbabwean identity and traditions. Within this context, the MDC
is firmly committed to commercial agriculture as the base of Zimbabwe’s economic
pyramid.

We can take heart because the evil of Zanu PF has been exposed
to the people of Zimbabwe. They feel the economic disaster in their daily lives
and in a free and fair election the people will vote them out. The evil of Zanu
PF has also been exposed to the world. As a result Zanu PF has lost all
international support and credibility. Try as they might, the world will never
believe their lies again.

The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery
Bill is a clear indication of the importance the US attaches to this country. It
is developing a general approach to Africa based on accountable governance as a
basis for sustainable economic development.

South Africa is the key
player in this regard and it views US support as key to its vision of an Africa
renaissance. We need look no further than at President Thabo Mbeki’s watering
down of the inaugural African Union’s ministerial statement which sought to
condone Mugabe’s excesses. The EU has already taken a clear position on
Zimbabwe, giving it 60 days to return to the rule of law.

We can take
heart because all these players are united in a strategy (endorsed by the MDC)
which is to ensure the freeness and fairness of our presidential elections, as
part of a broader strategy to encourage the nascent democratic movement that is
now emerging across Africa.

What then can we do? Our challenge is to
survive, and in the process to unite with all our potential friends which
comprise most of the people of Zimbabwe. We all need to forge unions and bonds
with groups and communities. In order to survive the strong must help the weak
and community plans will help identify these.

For farmers there is an
obvious union that must develop. It is the union between themselves and their
workers. The loyalty between these groups is an under-developed asset. The
workers, as human beings, need to be included in decisions about their future
and the dilemmas of how to deal with aggressive or passive invaders. After all,
don’t we owe much of what we have to the efforts of our workers?

There
are enough people of conscience in Zimbabwe to see the way ahead and to act
accordingly. The fortitude of the poorest amongst us to do what is right should
be an inspiration to us all. We are at one of those pivotal moments in history
about which people will write in the years ahead.

It might seem to be a
particularly long moment, but it needs to be, as many people have not yet used
it to help define themselves.

l Roy Bennett is MP for Chimanimani and
David Coltart for Bulawayo South.

FARMERS in Makonde are under siege. At
the time of going to press, 20 of them were being held in police cells on a
charge of public violence. And while they were enduring the heavy handedness of
Zimbabwean justice, the district of Doma was being evacuated. By Thursday last
week, after just a day of terror, 80% of the district had been closed down. Four
homesteads had been looted and trashed, stores and butcheries robbed, farmers
shot at, a dog slaughtered and property worth millions stolen.

The police did react, but slowly and
with obvious reluctance and eye witnesses say that it was a miracle that no one
was killed. Quite obviously the tactic was clear: the police wanted farmers to
react so that more arrests could be made. It is a ploy to prevent farmers coming
to one another's rescue, an effort to ensure that the siege of Liston Shields is
the last time farmers ever consider helping each other.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of
Liston Shields, the state media is already busy trying the farmers who were
arrested. That there are laws against this sort of reporting is largely
irrelevant: the law in Zimbabwe is no longer of much relevance while the state
acts with impunity. What is known, though, is that while farmers have been
arrested, no one seems to have been arrested for the injuries sustained by
farmers. Nor has anyone been arrested for the bloodthirsty crimes of violence
committed in Chinhoyi town on the Tuesday. At least 10 people were beaten, some
severely. Many were women going about their innocent business. One woman, beaten
in the police station, had been there to organise vehicle clearance to go on
holiday. A farmer's wife was beaten when she tried to deliver an inhaler to her
asthmatic husband who was being held in police cells. Another woman was beaten
in the post office, while yet another was beaten at a local farmers' shop. Peter
Flanagan, a local farmer in his seventies, was beaten in view of the police, who
walked away - and one of the women beaten was an old age pensioner.

This is brutality at its worst. It is
total anarchy, cruel and unjustifiable. And yet the state mewls and complains
that events in and around Chinhoyi received unfair press coverage from the
independent and foreign media. There's only one response that can be made to
that and it's unprintable.

History will judge the Chinhoyi 20
better than the magistrate's court has done. It will also treat them with
considerably more fairness. The system's mistake, a typical one when people are
under pressure, is to create martyrs to the cause of farming's plight.

For too long farmers have endured
terror, murder, intimidation, theft and insult. And for farm workers we can add
more, for they've endured worse. We can add rape to the list of crimes committed
against them and their families. If, and this paper is not pre-judging the
fracas at Liston Shields, but if there was a reaction from farmers, it's
certain that no right thinking people anywhere will criticise them - and that's
both within Zimbabwe and without. Farmers have had enough, and for the Liston
Shields incident to be followed so rapidly by the mayhem that hit Doma shortly
afterwards only serves to demonstrate the state's obvious hand in the
anarchy.

There is no longer even a pretence at
showing that the Zimbabwean government is trying to deal with a situation it
once said it has no part in. During the Doma debacle there were ruling party MPs
in the district. A senior ZANU-PF minister castigated a farm manager, making him
sit on a fertiliser bag, with his wife, behind the family home. Later his dog
was shot and his home looted. And still the nightmare that repeated itself
throughout the Doma district last week is justified by the state and ruling
party. Farmers, say the architects of Zimbabwe's demise, are intransigent.
Meanwhile there's an insincere (and totally implausible) lament about being
misunderstood by the international community.

Still, there's a positive aspect to all
this. The United States government will have to ponder less hard the Zimbabwe
Democracy Bill they've been debating. And the Europeans, always tremendously
good at prevaricating, will have less trouble deciding how to treat a regime
that systematically terrorises its own citizenry. And then, of course, events in
Doma will force Zimbabwe up the agenda at the forthcoming Commonwealth heads of
government meeting - and even at South Africa's racism summit. If Zimbabwe had
already earned herself pariah status, events in Chinhoyi and Doma last week made
that status irredeemable. There isn't a spin doctor born that can salvage
Zimbabwe's image and if the present incumbent, Professor Moyo, believes he's
that man then he is severely deluded.

As events unfolded so horrifically in
Mashonaland West last week, world attention was again focused on Zimbabwe. The
multiple tragedies, both in court and on the senselessly vandalised farms, have
done immense damage to Zimbabwe's ruling party at a time when it can least
afford bad publicity. From that point of view, good will come from the terror
people have suffered. And while it is true that there will be more victimisation
and more intimidation, the only thing to read into these moves is that imbecilic
behaviour is a sign of desperation. They are doing this because they can think
of nothing else to do - and if it is stood up to, then they will fail.

UNDER siege from Zanu-PF supporters who went on
the rampage in Chinhoyi this week, Magistrate, Mr Godfrey Gwaka, presiding over
the case in which 21 farmers were being accused by the state of attacking farm
invaders, said he needed more time to decide on whether they should be granted
bail or not.

After representations from both the defence
lawyers and prosecutors, Mr Gwaka said he needed more time to decide whether to
grant bail or not and remanded the farmers in custody for another
night.

The State had argued that the farmers should not
be granted bail because they were likely to abscond and would also interfere
with witnesses back at the farms. The prosecutor also claimed releasing them
would endanger their lives since the farm occupiers were said to be angry and
would retaliate against farmers over the alleged assaults.

However, the defence lawyers said they should be
granted bail because the farmers were still innocent until proved guilty. One of
the defence lawyers said it was surprising that on the identification parade,
one of the invaders identified all the farmers except two as having been present
during the clashes.

The court proceedings were delayed for unspecified
reasons and only started after 3:30 pm. They were further delayed when one of
the accused, 72 year old Mr Gert Pretorius collapsed in court. It is understood
that he was arrested when he went to the police station to bring blankets and
food to his farming colleagues who were being held.

The police and the Zanu-PF youths allegedly
refused entry into the court building the doctor who was called to look attend
to him. Mr Pretorius was then taken the Chinhoyi Hospital by a police vehicle
and the court proceedings resumed.

Among the accused is a British passport holder and
officials from the British High commission were present in court. Evidently,
representatives of the British High Commission were the only white people
allowed into the court room besides the accused white farmers, as the court
premises had effectively been declared a no go area for all white people.

Mr Richard Lindsay of the British High Commission
said later, "It is normal practice. If a British national is arrested we visit
them to ensure that they are being well treated and are represented by a lawyer
and that justice is done. All embassies do the same thing."

The courtroom was packed to capacity with rowdy
Zanu-PF youths in the company of the Chinhoyi MP, Mr Philip Chiyangwa, who took
it upon themselves to determine who should or should not be allowed into
courtroom. Those who were not known to be the party's loyalists and had come to
just witness the proceedings were thrown out of the courtroom in full view of
the police. Only journalists from the State media were allowed to cover the
proceedings.

Representatives of other media perceived to be hostile to the
ruling party were unceremoniously thrown out of the courtroom and were warned to
stay clear of the court surroundings. Some of the Zanu-PF youths in attendance
menacingly demanded identification documents from journalists and other people
while police silently watched.

Doma explodes as invaders take law into own hands

WHILE 20 Chinhoyi farmers were fighting for their
freedom in the magistrate's court, farmers in nearby Doma were forced to flee
their properties as self-styled war veterans and militants from the ruling
ZANU-PF party ransacked their homes.

Trouble began on Thursday morning and continued
unrelentingly throughout the day. "About 80 percent of Doma has been shut down,"
said Jan Botes, CFU chairman for the province.

At Two Trees Farm on the Mhangura road, Charl
Geldenhuys and his wife survived a nightmare situation at the hands of war
veterans who shot their dog and forced them to leave their home. Two lorry loads
of fertiliser were removed from the farm. The house was later looted and
trashed.

In all four homes were looted on Thursday, with
so-called war veterans brazenly loading furniture onto vehicles before driving
away. No arrests for theft are known to have been made. A further three were
senselessly trashed by the time of going to press on Friday.

It is estimated that millions of dollars worth of
damage was done over the two days as militant supporters of the ruling party
went on the rampage.

The carnage followed a day of terror for residents
of Chinhoyi town on Tuesday. Following the arrest of the Chinhoyi 20,
self-styled war veterans went on a spree of violence through the town, beating
whites at random. Several women were among the victims, including an old age
pensioner from Sunningdale Trust old people's home. Another, a farmer's wife,
was beaten in front of police officers in the Chinhoyi people station. When 72
year old Peter Flanagan, a Chinhoyi farmer asked the police if they were going
to stand and watch as people were assaulted, the police walked away. Flanagan
was also beaten. "It wasn't a nice experience," he said stoically, adding that
the police would not let him lay charges at the time, though he vowed to pursue
the matter. "I will lay charges," he said.

Flanagan told The Farmer that the entire
incident was political. "It has nothing to do with land," he said. "Liston
Shields was enough to spark the whole thing off." Liston Shields was the farm
where the 20 Chinhoyi farmers were arrested.

Meanwhile at Cotswold Estate, war vets stole three vehicles,
overturning one, in a looting frenzy that cost the farm millions. At the time of
going to press, so-called war veterans were still rampaging through Doma
district, harassing farm workers and looting at will.

Chinhoyi agricultural show defies land crisis

ZIMBABWEANS have, over the years, faced problems
such as droughts and floods, but never before has there been so much uncertainty
and a real threat of a crippling food shortage in the country as now in the wake
of the government's controversial land reform programme.

Speaking the Chinhoyi Agricultural Show, president
of the Chinhoyi Show Society, Mr Peter Flanagan, bemoaned the current crisis on
the farms saying this had contributed to the poor showing at the annual showcase
for farmers and the local community. He said this year there was lack of
organisation of the part of communal exhibitors because Agritex, which usually
did this, was pre-occupied with the illegal fast track resettlement programme.
As a result, he said, crop exhibition had gone down by 70%.

He said, however, despite the problems being faced
on commercial farms , the cattle section had been well supported by both
exhibitors and sponsors. There was an increase in the number of cattle entered
in the cattle competition from 80 to 126.

Officially opening the show, National Social
Security Authority (NSSA) acting managing director, Mr Amod Takawira, said this
year's show was being held against the backdrop of a struggling economy. He said
Zimbabwe was in the throes of its worst economic crisis characterised by
spiralling prices and an acute shortage of foreign currency.

Mr Takawira said Mashonaland West Province
remained the breadbasket of the country as well as being one of the largest
foreign exchange earners for the nation through earnings from tobacco
sales.

"You will find it interesting to know that the
Mashonaland West region produces 32% of the nation's burley tobacco and wheat
and 25% of the cotton and tobacco and 15% of maize, the country's staple food.
Tobacco and cotton are the top foreign rxchange earners. These figures
illustrate the contribution made by the Mashonaland West Province to the
national economy," he said.

He said NSSA was determined to play a visible role
in the development of the region and this had already begun with its involvement
in the Biri dam project. NSSA financed the construction of the dam to the tune
of $230 million. Mr Takawira said this was when most commercial bank and other
lending institutions were reluctant to finance it. This, he said, was set to
benefit the farmers in Banket, Chinhoyi, Zvimba, Chitomborwizi and
Makonde.

He said a $20 million housing scheme was underway
in Chinhoyi and a shopping mall was under consideration.

The organiser in the cattle section, Mr Arthur Bosman, said
there were three more new cattle breeders on the exhibition this year. He noted,
however, that some breeders were slaughtering their breeding stock due to
problems on farms, "but we have to live on".

Invaders demand donations

EXTORTION from farmers in the Bromley/Ruwa and
Enterprise areas took new form this week when so called war veterans and other
invaders on their farms made demands that they donate generously towards the
weekend's Heroes' Day celebrations.

Some of the farmers reported to the Commercial
Farmers Union (CFU) being subjected to steep demands for donations in cash and
in kind towards the celebrations. They said a celebrations committee to solicit
for donations had been established in the Enterprise area although it remained
unclear whether this had been sanctioned by the government.

At the time of going to press, it could not be
established whether any of the farmers had succumbed to the demands. In the
Centenary area, a group of war veterans and Zanu PF supporters were reportedly
going around the district insisting that the Heroes' Day weekend should include
Friday, 10 August.

Stop the violence, pleads CFU

ANGERED by incidents this week in which one farmer
was killed, several injured and more than 20 arrested over violent clashes with
so called war veterans and Zanu-PF supporters occupying farms, the Commercial
Farmers Union (CFU) has, once again, appealed to government to act swiftly to
quell the unrest.

A statement issued by the union's deputy director
(regions), Malcolm Vowles, "expressed concern at the deteriorating lawlessness
in the country over the past few days citing incidents reported in Beatrice,
Mvurwi, Banket, Norton, Chinhoyi, Marondera, Mutare, Chiredzi, Gweru,
Matabeleland and Kwekwe where an elderly farmer, Mr Ralph Fenwick Cobbert, was
murdered.

Mr Corbett, who lived alone on his Lannas Farm in
Kwekwe was struck on the head with an axe by suspected war veterans and
subsequently died in a Harare Hospital on 6 August, the day the Chinhoyi crisis
began.

"The CFU executive is becoming increasingly
concerned for the safety of their members," said Mr Vowles in the statement this
week.

In Chinhoyi about 100 kilometres north-west of the
capital, Harare, violence broke out following violent skirmishes between a group
of farmers that had responded to a distress call by another farmer, Mr Tony
Barkley who, with his family, had been barricaded in the homestead at their
Listonshields Farm, and suspected war veterans and other invaders at the farm.
The incident led to the arrest of 21 commercial farmers who were subsequently
detained at Chinhoyi and Banket prisons pending their appearance in the
courts.

The violence later spread through Chinhoyi
resulting in further assaults and intimidation of members of the white community
in the town. According to the CFU three of the detained farmers were arrested
when they went to the police station to offer support to their colleagues. At
least three wives of the detained farmers were assaulted when they attempted to
visit their detained husbands at the police station.

The perpetrators of the attacks, some of which
occurred within the police station grounds, were alleged to be Zanu-PF "youths"
who included a Mr Chirawa who identified himself to the local CFU representative
as the leader of the group. According to the CFU, Chinhoyi police, along with Mr
Chirawa and the war veterans advised the union's local representative, Mr Jan
Botes, to immediately evacuate all whites who live and work in Chinhoyi.

Narrating the sequence of events the union said at
about 9 am on 6 August, Mr Barkley reported to other farmers in the Chinhoyi
district, on their local radio network, that his house was being attacked by a
group of 40 persons brandishing axes and sticks." The police were informed but
their response did not inspire confidence that violence would be averted
timeously or dealt with in an unbiased fashion," said the CFU.

Contrary to reports in the government media, the
farmers who initially visited the scene had to retreat after being assaulted by
the invaders. A group of about 25 farmers proceeded to Listonshields Farm with a
view to rescue their besieged colleague. "They arrived to find the homestead
surrounded, and forced their way through the mob in an effort to determine the
state of fate of the farmer and his family," the CFU said.

A confrontation had ensued resulting several of
the occupiers and five of the farmers being injured, one seriously and had to be
hospitalized. "The besieged and embattled farmer was eventually found barricaded
inside the house, out of reach of his radio," said the CFU statement.

The police eventually arrived and ordered that the
farmers report to Chinhoyi Police Station to give statements. On arrival at the
police station, 17 farmers were immediately arrested for allegedly attacking the
occupiers. A 72-year old man who arrived later to bring blankets for those who
had been arrested was also detained., while none of the occupiers was arrested
or detained for questioning.

More arrests followed in the morning of 7 August
when a group of farmers and local residents went to the police station in an
effort to mediate. The additional arrests brought the number of detained farmers
to 21.

In the meantime, the union reaffirmed its
commitment to the Zimbabwe Joint Resettlement Initiative (ZJRI). "CFU and its
partners driving the Zimbabwe Joint Resettlement Initiative (ZJRI) committed to
finding common ground and all meetings currently being held are devoted to
securing consensus on the land reform programme despite the tense situation on
the ground.

"At the CFU congress members stood firm on the
need to dialogue with government and to seek a speedy solution that meets the
economic needs of the country by restoring productivity to the agricultural
sector. Press reports indicate that Zimbabwe is headed for food shortages and
farmers are concerned at their inability to sow and harvest their crops without
hindrance" the union said.